Well, loyal readers, it finally happened. The spring finally came and, with it, the best day of the year: “Sports Day.” During “Sports Day,” classes are canceled (because it’s always on a Saturday), social events are enjoyed (often on porches) and friends come together to cheer on Dartmouth sporting events and throw every chirp they can possibly imagine at opposing teams from lesser colleges and universities.
There are a few of you out there who are asking yourselves, “How is this a phenomenon? Do these guys actually know what phenomenon means? Isn’t there anything else on TV or in this newspaper?” I understand your plight and concerns and would like to take a second to address them point by point.
1) How is this a phenomenon? Well, to be honest, we just can’t explain how all the conditions come together so perfectly. Somehow, the sun is always shining, all day. School work seems to slow down a little bit, and KAF doesn’t have any good sandwiches, so there is absolutely no need to go to the library. Everyone wants to hang out. Baseball gloves, bats and footballs magically appear places. People you thought were off really aren’t.
2) Do these guys actually know what “phenomenon” means? Yes. See above and stop being so condescending. So what if we had to look it up on Google just to make sure?
3) Isn’t there anything else on TV or in this newspaper? Yes, there probably is. Lots of op-eds (which we read, and are usually pretty good and thought-provoking — much like our column). Apparently someone also threw a couple of bills Dartmouth’s way.
As seniors who realized early Saturday morning that this was our last “Sports Day” in Hanover, we canceled all our plans, bailed on all previous obligations, turned on our AIM away messages just in case, and then went back to bed to prepare for a noon start.
So anyway, at the crack of noon, I arose to find three text messages. Two were from my parents. Classic Friday night. Apparently, no one realized it was “Sports Day” yet. Anyway, I got up, ate a breakfast of champions at FoCo, rolled to Dirt Cowboy for some NARP Powerade and then went to the baseball game.
A big crowd was there to watch the Big Green play Yale, and the fans did not disappoint. I am going to give some of the chirps a five on the 10-point scale, but the compassion scored at least a seven. It’s pretty easy when your team is cruising to an easy victory over the Red Rolfe Division leaders and poising to take the divisional lead. All-time highlight was getting a response from the Yale coach as to why he would not send a runner when the team was down six runs in the bottom of the last inning. How did that one work out for you?
Next, a brief stop at the rugby field house to watch the men’s team absolutely crush Clemson. There were lots of polos, and we felt under dressed. We also realized that watching a team come all the way from South Carolina to get beaten that badly was a bit upsetting. We left relatively quickly.
Anyway, onto men’s tennis outside of Thompson Arena. Not much to report other than we smoked Penn individually, and seeing that big of a beat-down almost bummed me out. Sure, we dropped the doubles point, but we swept singles for the win. I am not going to rank chirps or compassion because it’s not funny to chirp people who are beaten so soundly.
Next, we saw lots of great fans and alumni back up for the weekend for women’s lacrosse senior day. Despite the disappointing 10-6 loss, in my expert opinion, the team played really well. Overall, the chirps, though fewer, were much, shall we say, more sincere. I am going with a seven on chirps and an eight on compassion.
Finally, women’s softball against Yale — we really had our stride here. We came in extra innings in the first game of a Saturday doubleheader. Do I see a correlation between our presence and the fact that Dartmouth won that inning? Not really, it was probably that the Big Green absolutely crushed the ball, but I would like to think we had something to do with it. The real highlight came in the second game when the quality and compassion of chirping escalated to a point that a very sensitive Yale softball team could no longer handle. Yale parents requested that “certain individuals” leave the facilities. Dartmouth went on to win 10-1. Some might call this dismissal unfair, I would call it a fitting end to “Sports Day” 2014.
Next week, we are back at it. We will return from fandom to take on either the baseball or softball team.
